GardenTech 2009, a garden fair which takes place every other year in HortPark, will commence on 14 Aug 2009 and that means we are just only four days away! The tentages were erected not too long ago and the setting up of my division’s booth now begin. The Hort Excellence booth team consisting of Pearl Ho, Keneric Ng and myself brainstormed earlier to come up with a design that will be put up in the 3 m x 2m space that was allocated to us.
The division which I worked in the National Parks Board (NParks) is known as the Hort Excellence division and we will be presenting to visitors of GardenTech 2009 the ‘Hort Gallery’. The Hort Gallery aims to showcase new plant introductions to the realm of landscape and horticulture in Singapore. The visitor will expect to see some new species and cultivars of plants not commonly or never seen locally. The poster found in the show catalogue was designed by a fellow colleague, Joyce Foo.
The display showcases some plants taken from our own plant collection that were obtained via various overseas plant-sourcing trips. We were also fortunate to be able to put forth a more varied and interesting range of plants via the help conferred to us by various friends in the gardening fraternity.
They include Mr Tan Jiew Hoe, Mr Linus Loh and Mr Tan Eng Ong who lent us a range of ornamental plants which range from aroids, ornamental bananas to flowering gesneriads. Two partners from the landscape industry, namely, HortMart by Far East Flora sponsored us a pair of 1 m tall olive trees and Terrascapes lent us a terrarium of sundews.
Besides plants, visitors to the Hort Excellence booth will be treated to a demonstration of using coconut leaf weaving conducted by one of our veteran staff members, Mr Rahim. He will show visitors how to turn the strips of coconut leaves into birds and crabs. One can also learn the art of making ‘ketupats’ which is a way of wrapping rice dumplings that is unique to the Malays.
